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JAFFA, Israel – Dozens of Quranic verses have been removed from the Jordanian national curriculum, including those referencing jihad, prompting criticism from the Muslim Brotherhood and its representatives in Jordan.

Huda Alatoum, an educator and high-profile MP for the Muslim Brotherhood, said that “far-reaching changes” have been introduced in Jordan’s school program that remove verses and hadiths (oral traditions) “pertaining to Prophet Mohammed’s life.”

“About 40 percent of the curriculum about Arabic language and Islam have been changed, including the removal of all reference to jihad and opposing the occupation of Palestine,” she charged, adding that “325 verses and 75 Islamic texts have been removed.”

She concluded by warning that “even worse changes” are ahead.

Alatoum said she decided to hold a press conference after her protest efforts in parliament met with failure. In her addresses to the plenary, she repeatedly claimed that the amendments were decided without the approval of parliament’s Education Committee.

A religious and political dispute continues to brew in Jordan over a controversial move by the Ministry of Education to revamp the curricula of the three elementary grades. According to Deputy Prime Minister Jawad Anani, the changes are part of the government’s strategy to combat extremism in society.

Changes to school textbooks introduced this year involve coverage of Islam, history, Arabic and civics. For example, in civics, reference is made to acknowledge Christians as a demographic component of the population with pictures of churches as well as mosques. In religion, entire verses from the Quran and sayings by the Prophet Muhammad have been removed, while in Arabic literature, a picture of a veiled woman was replaced with one showing an unveiled woman. In Arabic-language textbooks for the third grade, a Quranic verse was replaced by a text on swimming. No changes were made to books on the sciences, mathematics and art.

The issue of extremism in the school curricula and the reforms proposed are dividing the country. Conservatives, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Action Front (IAF), which contested the Sept. 20 Lower House elections, have denounced the move “as an affront to our heritage and values aimed at distancing future generations from its religion, its Arab identity, its history and traditions.”

Alatoum’s campaign became a sensation on social media.

“That’s what the West wants, a generation that knows nothing about its religion except prayer and fasting,” Misbah tweeted. “They amend the curriculum pretending to root out extremism, but they introduce only corruption instead.”

Jordan’s King Abdullah II visited the United States last week and met several officials from the new administration, including President Donald Trump.

The king’s visit came against a background of growing concerns that terrorist organizations, especially the Islamic State, will seek to settle along Jordan’s borders with Iraq and Syria following their retreats from Raqqa and Mosul.

Mr Hattar was arrested in August for sharing a cartoon on his Facebook page which showed a jihadist smoking in bed with two women while Allah waits attentively at the window for him.

The jihadist orders Allah to fetch him some wine and take away the dirty plates while demanding the archangel Gabriel get him some cashew nuts.

Mr Hattar said the cartoon was intended to mock jihadists and their twisted interpretation of Islam but Jordan’s government charged him with insulting the faith and “provoking sectarian rifts”.

The writer rejected the charges and planned to fight the case. If convicted, he could have faced up to three years in prison.

“I am mocking the terrorists and their conception of hell and heaven,” Mr Hattar wrote shortly before his death. “I’m not insulting the supreme Allah, at all, on the contrary, I’m against the type of God that the terrorists worship.

Nahed Hattar was shot outside a courthouse and died in hospital in Amman CREDIT: AP PHOTO/RAAD ADAYLEH

Mr Hattar’s family immediately blamed Jordan’s government for failing to protect the writer, saying the decision to publicly charge him with offending Islam had made him a target for Muslim extremists.

“We hold the Ministry of Interior responsible,” said Jamal Attar, a cousin. “This is the first assassination in Jordan that targets a person over nothing but his opinion, for freedom of speech.”

Jordan’s government condemned his murder, calling it an “ugly crime” and promised “investigating the incident and holding the criminal accountable for his offense”.

Christians make up only around 4 per cent of Jordan’s 8 million residents but they live in relative affluence and usually in peace with country’ Muslim majority.

Nine seats in the 130-seat parliament are reserved for them and they hold prominent positions in the business sector and Jordan, a key Western ally, presents itself as a staunch defender of minority groups.

During his speech to the United Nations last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah said: “Every citizen is guaranteed the state’s protection for their lives, families, properties, honour, privacy, and freedom of religion and thought.”

Every citizen is guaranteed the state’s protection for their lives families properties privacy, & freedom of religion & thought #HMSpeech

But many diplomats and analysts worry that that the Jordanian government’s tolerant rhetoric is at odds with wide swathes of religious extremism in the country.

“Jordan’s leaders are reticent to acknowledge domestic radicalisation, including self-radicalisation,” the US State Department said in a report in June.

Around 2,000 Jordanians crossed the border to fight in Syria in 2015, according to the Soufan Group, making Jordan one of the largest per capita sources of foreign fighters.

Mr Hattar was a regular columnist for al-Akhbar, a pan-Arab newspaper based in Lebanon, where he wrote regularly against Islamic extremism.

The Left-wing writer was also a staunch supporter of the Assad regime in Syria. Most of the Jordanian public opposes the Assad regime and supports the opposition and armed rebel groups. He was arrested several times in Jordan in the 1970s for his outspoken criticism of the Jordanian government.

On a Facebook group formed after his death, some people compared him to other recent artists and intellectuals who fell victim to violent extremism, for example the staff of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo who were killed by gunmen in January 2015.

Others spoke critically of the decision to bring charges against him in the first place.

“The Jordanian authorities who charged Nahed Hattar with ‘insulting Islam’ and the social media storm aroused by the cartoon he shared may not have murdered him but they provided his killers with the ideological ammo to shoot him,” wrote Khaled Diab, an Egyptian-Belgian writer.

This is what happens when u put people on trial for posting cartoons on Facebook – u legitimize fascists & thought-crimes. RIP Nahed Hattar

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State (ISIS) share things in common – one being the major driving force for their respective groups, which is Sharia law. Although they are rivals, it would make sense for the Brotherhood to be at least sympathetic to ISIS’s cause and even partner with them when necessary. We may be witnessing this taking place or at least at a rudimentary level in Jordan with the Muslim Brotherhood allegedly operating a militant camp for “underage children[,]” showing them “semi-ISIS” type activities. TheJewishPress.com reports on the details of the camp stating:

The camp is allegedly located on the outskirts of Amman, and photographs on Ammon News show a group of young boys in the camp jumping over fire, doing pushups and crawling on the ground. Apparently the term “Semi-ISIS training” refers to combat training inspired by ISIS’ YouTube videos.

A Muslim Brotherhood leader named Zaki Bani Rushaid has denied the report affiliating his organization with the camp. He told Saraya News, “We stand to gain nothing from establishing such camps and it’s impossible that our group would carry out such actions.”

Even though the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood is allegedly illegal in Jordan, whose government shut down Brotherhood’s Amman headquarters in April, it still has a considerable influence within the country. It also has an interest in fomenting anger with Jordanians – especially with young Palestinians that feel slighted by their government. In fact, one can argue that the more discontent the Brotherhood stirs up the better positioned they become to demand political concessions from the government – especially when many people have been calling for changes to King Abdullah II’s government such as more democratic reforms.

Some people may write off this sort of militant camp as managed by just an extreme group of individuals within the Muslim Brotherhood, but national security analyst Kyle Shideler finds these kinds of training camps may not actually deviate that much from Brotherhood doctrine. Tweeting a passage from Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s (a leading spiritual figure of the Muslim Brotherhood) book Islamic Education and Hassan Al Banna, (page 67) Shideler reveals how the Brotherhood supports “Crusader-like training” which encompasses the spiritual aspect in addition to the physical:

Blogger Eman Nabih points out that the link between the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS is no longer a speculation, as different Arab and Egyptian sources have revealed that the link between MB and ISIS is a reality. The two groups may focus on different Arab countries for the time being, but the ideological connection between them is clear, and, apparently, the operational ties are starting to be revealed.

Not to dismiss the nuances between various Muslim Brotherhood branches throughout the world, but people need to start asking why are there so many terror links with Brotherhood groups if they are the ‘moderate’ organization portrayed by much of the media? Why don’t all Brotherhood groups flat-out reject Hamas and cut off any ties to them? The Muslim Brotherhood/ISIS connection doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all.

In the West, some tend to dismiss the threat of Sharia law, claiming incorrectly that it applies only to Muslims.

However, this is far from the truth. Let’s take a look at a recent example from the ‘moderate’ country of Jordan. Nahed Hattar, a Jordanian writer, turned himself into authorities after Jordan’s Prime Minister Hani Mulki called for an investigation of an ‘offensive’ cartoon that surfaced on Facebook.

This cartoon which allegedly shows the “God of Daesh” serving a jihadi in paradise is translated by Anwar el-Iraqi, an Arabic Affairs analyst for the Clarion Project:

In Green: In paradise…

Allah: “May your evening be joyous, Abu Saleh, do you need anything?”

Jihadist: “Yes Lord, bring me the glass of wine from other there and tell Jibril [the Angel Gabriel] to bring me some cashews. After that send me an eternal servant to clean the floor and take the empty plates with you.”

Jihadist continues: “Don’t forget to put a door on the tent so that you knock before you enter next time, your gloriousness.”

Hattar– who is a non-Muslim— said he posted the drawing to ridicule terrorists and their perspective on God and heaven and did not intend for it to be an insult to God.

Another article by Al Jazeera reveals that, in addition to mocking ISIS, Hattar was also exposing the Muslim Brotherhood. The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood (which has demonstrated support for Hamas) is a major Islamist force within Jordanian society and has been known to stir up social unrest and exploit the anger of Palestinian Jordanians for the Brotherhood’s political gain.

Khaled Qudah, a media expert, explains to The Jordan Times that, “Hattar can be detained pending further investigation for violating article 150 of the Penal Code that bans contempt of religions and also for violating the Electronic Crimes Law[.]” Qudah continues,

What Hattar did incites hatred and sectarianism and may cause division… Preserving national security and social harmony and the public interest comes before freedom of expression even in international law. [Emphasis added]

Outside the context of Islamic law, we might be incredulous about be how a cartoon aimed at exposing radical Islam could be considered a threat to a Muslim nation’s national security.

To understand what he meant in the Islamic context, though, requires a closer look at the words used to describe the offense. The mocking cartoon, Qudah said, “incites hatred and sectarianism and may cause division.”

The incitement of division is a primary concern in Islam, as it relates to the stability of the Islamic regime. This concept is called “Fitna.” In the Historical Dictionary of Islamic Fundamentalism, Mathieu Guiderdefines it this way:

The Arabic term fitna refers to a division within a Muslim nation (umma) that includes a test of faith that can even lead to rebellion, chaos, or sedition. Historically, it is derived from the first Islamic civil war that occurred following the assassination of CaHph Uthman in 656. This war, which lasted from 656 to 661, was called the fitna. The term has since been used to describe a period when a Muslim community becomes unbalanced and then fragmented.

Moreover, it can mean that a person or group intentionally causes upheaval between people to create a situation to test the peoples’ faith. Fitna is also often used to illustrate a group that has undergone extreme moral and emotional grievances that then may compromise their faith and lead to a greater focus on material or worldly gains rather than spiritual ones.

For example, the Arab Spring has been qualified in Saudi Arabia as a fitna because it can weaken the community from within. The duality that occur s when being affected by a rebellion or a revolution is what can tempt Muslims to shy away from or even deny the authority of the Muslim leaders who are ruling in the name of Allah. Also, the temptations brought on by Western societies are another example of how division can occur.

The fear of fitna by the fundamentalists is a major reason why secular or pluralist governments are forbidden by sharia (Islamic law). The elements of such forms of government are seen to give too much temptation and lead to an inevitable division among the umma. For Islamic fundamentalists, there is only one true party: the Party of Allah (Hizbullah). This is so important because the Islamic state is based on the rhetoric of solidarity and unification. [Emphasis added.]

Especially when we see the seriousness with which this offense is taken in Islam, it’s clear that fitna is a concept that has a lot more in common with what we would consider the “political” rather than the religious.

Another major reason for such laws is essentially to protect Islam – which is why we aren’t seeing Muslims being thrown in jail for blaspheming the name of Christ, for example. Or when a member of Jordan’s Parliament, Khalil Attieh, displayed his hatred of Jews on television in 2014 by stating, “By Allah, it is an honor to incite against the Jews…”

I am a Muslim and we are all Muslims, and extremists do not represent Islam. Our duty is to protect the reputation of Islam and Muslims.

Abdullah sees ISIS as on the periphery of Islam and seeks to delegitimize them; however, his government is going after an image that mocks ISIS’s alleged view of God and heaven.

Apparently, ISIS’s views on these matters aren’t as twisted as Jordan claims them to be in regards to Islamic beliefs.

If Jordan is seriously attempting to represent a ‘moderate’ form of Islam, why won’t they make this an opportunity to show how jihadists– who murder people so they can enjoy fleshly desires in paradise while being catered to (as portrayed in the cartoon)– have no place in their version of Islam?

Jordan is essentially upholding blasphemy laws that legitimize ISIS’s radical Islamic ideology. Just how disgusting is this ideology? It justifies the boiling of six men in containers of tar for being “accused of collaborating with the U.S.-led coalition and Kurdish forces[,]” and the killing of twenty-five people by forcing them in a tub of nitric acid for supposedly “spying and collaborating with Iraqi security forces[.]” Shouldn’t these be the guys Jordan seeks to prosecute?

According to Al Bawaba, public outcry over the cartoon ensued on social media and not only were some Twitter users insulted, but also seemed concerned about “civil order[.]” Of course, being in a Muslim majority country they seem well aware of the hyper-sensitivity of mocking Islam, which is ultimately found in Islamic texts:

Indeed, those who abuse Allah and His Messenger – Allah has cursed them in this world and the Hereafter and prepared for them a humiliating punishment. –Quran 33:57

Narrated ‘Ali: The Prophet said, “Do not tell a lie against me for whoever tells a lie against me (intentionally) then he will surely enter the Hell-fire.” –Sahih Bukhari 1.3.106

Jordanian officials like King Abdullah help further advance this sentiment by denouncing insults to Islam like cartoons mocking Islam’s Prophet Mohammad and intimidating those who think about doing such things.

So, we have a supposed ‘moderate’ country in Jordan that punishes Muslims as well as non-Muslims for matters like blasphemy at fitna.

Even in places in Europe Sharia might not be the law of the land but because of fear of Muslim outrage the governing authorities may discourage or even punish those who make offensive or insensitive remarks about Islam – creating de facto blasphemy laws.

The funeral in Rimoun, Jordan, for Anwar Abu Zaid, a police captain who was killed after he attacked a police training center in November. American and Jordanian officials said they believed that the weapons he used had been meant for a program to train Syrian rebels. CreditNasser Nasser/Associated Press

AMMAN, Jordan — Weapons shipped into Jordan by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia intended for Syrian rebels have been systematically stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market, according to American and Jordanian officials.

Some of the stolen weapons were used in a shooting in November that killed two Americans and three others at a police training facility in Amman, F.B.I. officials believe after months of investigating the attack, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The existence of the weapons theft, which ended only months ago after complaints by the American and Saudi governments, is being reported for the first time after a joint investigation by The New York Times and Al Jazeera. The theft, involving millions of dollars of weapons, highlights the messy, unplanned consequences of programs to arm and train rebels — the kind of program the C.I.A. and Pentagon have conducted for decades — even after the Obama administration had hoped to keep the training program in Jordan under tight control.

The Jordanian officers who were part of the scheme reaped a windfall from the weapons sales, using the money to buy expensive SUVs, iPhones and other luxury items, Jordanian officials said.

The theft and resale of the arms — including Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades — have led to a flood of new weapons available on the black arms market. Investigators do not know what became of most of them, but a disparate collection of groups, including criminal networks and rural Jordanian tribes, use the arms bazaars to build their arsenals. Weapons smugglers also buy weapons in the arms bazaars to ship outside the country.

The F.B.I. investigation into the Amman shooting, run by the bureau’s Washington field office, is continuing. But American and Jordanian officials said the investigators believed that the weapons a Jordanian police captain, Anwar Abu Zaid, used to gun down two American contractors, two Jordanians and one South African had originally arrived in Jordan intended for the Syrian rebel-training program.

The officials said this finding had come from tracing the serial numbers of the weapons.

Mohammad H. al-Momani, Jordan’s minister of state for media affairs, said allegations that Jordanian intelligence officers had been involved in any weapons thefts were “absolutely incorrect.”

“Weapons of our security institutions are concretely tracked, with the highest discipline,” he said. He called the powerful Jordanian intelligence service, known as the General Intelligence Directorate, or G.I.D., “a world-class, reputable institution known for its professional conduct and high degree of cooperation among security agencies.” In Jordan, the head of the G.I.D. is considered the second most important man after the king.

Representatives of the C.I.A. and F.B.I. declined to comment.

The State Department did not address the allegations directly, but a spokesman said America’s relationship with Jordan remained solid.

“The United States deeply values the long history of cooperation and friendship with Jordan,” said John Kirby, the spokesman. “We are committed to the security of Jordan and to partnering closely with Jordan to meet common security challenges.”

The training program, which in 2013 began directly arming the rebels under the code name Timber Sycamore, is run by the C.I.A. and several Arab intelligence services and aimed at building up forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The United States and Saudi Arabia are the biggest contributors, with the Saudis contributing both weapons and large sums of money, and with C.I.A. paramilitary operatives taking the lead in training the rebels to use Kalashnikovs, mortars, antitank guided missiles and other weapons.

The existence of the program is classified, as are all details about its budget. American officials say that the C.I.A. has trained thousands of rebels in the past three years, and that the fighters made substantial advances on the battlefield against Syrian government forces until Russian military forces — launched last year in support of Mr. Assad — compelled them to retreat.

Five Jordanians were killed in what the state called a “terror attack” on Monday June 6th. The attack occurred around 7:00 a.m. local time in the Palestinian refugee camp in Baqa’a, where around 100,000 refugees are sheltered.

Mohammed Momani, a government spokesperson, stated that the attack targeted Jordan’s intelligence agency office, housed along the main street of the camp. Three of the five Jordanians killed were listed as intelligence officers, while a telephone operator and a guard also died in the attack.

Al Rai newspaper reported that a single assailant armed with an automatic weapon drove towards the office and then began an assault on the camp’s intelligence compound. Reports suggest that the gunman is still at large.

The Baqa’a camp was founded in the late 1960s as a result of the Arab-Israeli war. Though originally sheltered in tents and scrap materials, the Palestinian refugees transitioned the shantytown into a sort of de-facto city for Palestinian refugees by using concrete materials and UN provided prefabricated shelters.

Alongside Palestinian refugees, Jordan also hosts refugees from the Syrian civil conflict, caring for over 600,000 displaced Syrians. Jordan’s second largest refugee camp, Zaatari, hosts around 80,000 and is located less than 20 miles from the Baqa’a camp, about an hour drive.

Still, no announcements have been made as to the identity of the individual who carried out the attack or his/her motive. In a statement to the press, Mr. Momani called the actions “cowardly,” and outlined that it was carried out by “people who are outside of our religion.”

Jordan is currently ruled by King Abdullah II, a Sunni Muslim, whose family has ruled Jordan since the early 1920’s. Despite being one of the United States key allies in the fight against Islamic State and other terrorist groups, Jordan rarely faces attacks against its government forces. Additionally, the General Intelligence Directorate of Jordan (GID) has had longstanding cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Efforts to combat terrorist activities in Jordan are ongoing. Most recently, in March, the GID foiled planned attacks by an Islamic State cell when Jordanian military operatives raided a residential building in Irbid, in which they killed seven suspected jihadist insurgents. At the scene, officials found weapons, ammunition, explosives, and detonators as well as plans to attack civilian and military sites.

The Wall Street Journal stated that officials in Amman, the capital of Jordan, indicated the refugee attack was conducted by Islamic State, considering the group’s recent declaration urging supporters to conduct operations during the month of Ramadan.

Jordan has long been a target of jihadist attacks, specifically from Al Qaeda in Iraq (the predecessor to Islamic State), led by Jordanian leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was the driving force behind the infamous 2005 hotel bombings that killed dozens and injured hundreds staying in and aroung western resorts in Amman.

Al-Qaeda continues to seek support and influence in the region by tapping into the Syrian conflict.

In May, al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, announced plans to extend recruitment to areas in and around Syria. Among the Al Qaeda officials believed to be conducting operations are Jordanian operatives Abul Qassam and Sari Shibab.

While Islamic State remains the most obvious culprit, the source of the attack in Baqa’a could also stem from ongoing struggle between the Jordanian government and the opposition led by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has long been known to drawn support from refugee Palestinians. In recent months, the group has been pushing their political wing, Islamic Action Front, to boycott elections, among other protests, in an aim to topple the current regime. In recent years Jordanian security forces have accused Jordanian Muslim Brothers of cooperating with Hamas in weapons smuggling and training for attacks. Such tensions boiled over in April leading Jordanian officials to close down Muslim Brotherhood operations in the country.

Further complicating the attack are reports from Israeli intelligence of cooperation between Hamas and Islamic State “Sinai Province”. The cooperation between the two groups represents Hamas’ desire to target Egyptian security forces and destabilize Egyptian government after the military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013. Such an alliance could prove extremely destabilizing to the region, particularly if cooperation extends beyond Sinai and into Jordan.

As described by reports the assault on the intelligence office bears some resemblance to the operations of all three major terrorist groups: Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Hamas.

It likewise remains a possibility that the gunman was unaffiliated with any specific group. If so, further determination of the perpetrator’s motivations will require a successful capture and interrogation by Jordanian security forces.

For these reasons, Congress should follow through on passing the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz. The Muslim Brotherhood should also be a declared terrorist organization within the United States because it has acted to infiltrate and subvert our government in dangerous ways. In 1996 its chief American agent, Abdurahman Alamoudi, enjoyed significant access to the Clinton White House as the founder of the American Muslim Council. In that role, he was able to appoint Islamic chaplains to the US military and to recruit converts in Federal prison. Now, he is serving a 23-year prison sentence on Federal terrorism charges. The subversion has not stopped. The Brotherhood now appoints Islamic chaplains through another of its allied organizations, the Islamic Society of North America.